Khurram Kalimi is co-founder and COO of VinnCorp, a firm that helps founders and companies hire remote-first tech teams fast, and is also an author, podcaster, and coach. Originally from Karachi, Pakistan, he studied computer science and earned an MBA before moving into technology sales, spending roughly 3.5 years at Oracle and then time at Microsoft and VMware — seven companies across fifteen years that built the network he later leaned on. He launched VinnCorp about eight years ago; it now has 55 employees and 150 customers, including two Fortune 500s and seven unicorns, and is expanding from pure engineering into creative marketing and content. His thesis: as AI commoditizes building, authenticity, human connection, and long-term relationships are what actually win in sales and marketing.
“AI is very helpful and efficient in some ways, but it's very counterproductive in a lot of ways. Once they try to do sales and marketing through AI, they miss the human angle.”
“It's not important what you have built, what you have made, how much you know. It's important what they want, because they are the one who will be paying for it.”
“People are sick and tired of auto-generated emails and LinkedIn messages and approaches. It's spam.”
“When the demand-supply equilibrium is disturbed like this, this is bound to happen.”
“Whatever you stop using will die soon. Exactly the same with the brain. If we stop using our brain, it will be unusable.”
“Use AI, use whatever, but please keep using your brain too.”
“When the knife was invented, you can use it to cut fruits, but you can use it to kill someone. Exactly the same with technology.”
“At the end of the day, it's blood in our veins. We are not robots. We need human connection, we need community, we need people around us.”